Yudley, don't chalk it up to genetic limits. Not yet. You're lifting on poor sleep and poor hydration at maximal loads. That's tough.

I'd keep going for now, try to get more sleep and drink more water. If you genuinely stall, well, your genetics can only take you so far in a straight line. After that, you need to zig-zag a bit. Cut back the weights and start over, change to Madcow 5x5 or the Texas Method, go to Wendler's 5/3/1 program, something like that. You can only add 5-10 pounds to the bar every workout for a pretty short time. Don't be like most gym goers and just stop there.

You also inspired my blog post for tomorrow, actually. The bit about only being able to go in a straight line for a short amount of time. I did that about 8 years ago or so and hit a wall and just stayed around that strength for a long time. I didn't know what I needed to know, about varying loads and periodization. No reason for you to get stuck there, the folks here can tell you what you need to know. Or where to find it.

It's not aimed at you, really. But what I said to you made me realize I had more to say about that. I was also aiming it at people like me and a friend of mine, who took a few runs up to a plateau, got stop, and tried to ram through by doing more of the same. That just doesn't work so well.

Your progress in only 23 workouts is really impressive. +100 on the squat, +115 on the deadlift, +55 and +32.5 on the presses is nice! And you're still making linear gains - very nice!

The chinups might be lagging a bit but they'll catch up. As soon as you get close enough to "unassisted" to do a single (even if you have to jump up a bit to start it), I'd move right onto them. Better 10 sets of 1 unassisted than 1 set of 10 assisted, IMO. Your body will catch up to the demand pretty quickly.

But still, as long as this is still working for you, keep it up. Sucks about the waist size "improvement" though. You could either just suck it up, or cut down a little on the food (probably on the starchy carbs outside of pre- and post-workout). I'd take a 3" waist gain for a +100# squat and +115# DL gain, though. No question! Heh.

Don't worry about the size, the internet seems have a lot of 18" arms but I haven't seen too many in person.

yeah i'm eating quite a bit of starch everyday ... i guess cutting it out would mean going for oatmeal as much as possible as a carb source (and may be brown rice too) ... correct me if i'm wrong

By non-starchy carbs I meant vegetables and fruit - any fibrous veggies or fruits, especially. Brown rice and oatmeal are starches. So if you're finding you're getting a bit of fat gain above and beyond what you can tolerate, I'd just swap out some or all of the brown rice and oatmeal with veggies, and eat the rice and oats soon after you lift.

I'm just throwing out suggestions. I'm a diet novice at best. But I've had cutting non-vegetable and non-fruit carbs to a minimum work well for fat loss for me. And limiting my starches to post-workout seems to be working better for me when I gain weight, too. Like, right now. I stole that from John Berardi's PN introductory materials. We'll see if I still feel the same way after a month or two of this approach.

yudlejoza wrote:

also thanks for the blog link ... i'll understand it's not for a beginner like me so i'll follow it with a grain of salt ....

As long as you can show up and add weight to the bar week after week, don't complicate it. Once you need to complicate stuff, you'll wish you could just add weight to the bar every time. :)

Is 30-40 minutes of HIIT tougher than 30-40 minutes of other cardio (like running on a treadmill) ?

the reason i quoted the 30+ number is to have enough cardio that'll help with fat burning (fat burning is not my main goal though ... right now i'm in the bulk phase ... however i'm trying to eat as clean as possible) ...

if not 30+ i know from common knowledge that i should be doing at least 20 minutes of cardio 3 times a week

i have no idea if that's overboard or not ... i've never done it before ... enlighten me ... thx

P.S.: i don't plan to lower the intensity of my lifting during this time which is my first priority.

Anything you can do for 30 minutes is not intense. If it's truly intense, 15-20 minutes is enough. However there are exceptions. It's common to practice sprints with 5 minutes rest between sprints and training sessions can last 30 minutes. That type of training is more performance based. HIIT is usually done so that you are not fully recovered from the previous work cycle, such as 30 seconds work, 30 seconds rest. You can't do that with any amount of effort beyond a few minutes.

As i understand it, HIIT is about the intensity. If it starts becoming endurance... Make it harder! Lower the resttime, carry weights, w/e. You can rest untill your HR is back at reasonable levels, you can rest x amount of seconds/minutes, whatever works. But its gotta be intense.

However, from experience, i wouldnt count on HIIT improving your endurance by a whole lot. If youre starting from scratch, cardio-wise, it probably will.. But dont expect to run longer distances based on doing alot of sprints for example, even if its 30 minutes of sprinting. What youre doing is improving your recovery time, not your endurance. (DRASTICLY improved recovery time, though)

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